Just Catchin' Up

Life's been a bit foggy lately.

So any attempt at blogging has fallen on the back burner...

But, even in a fog there are bright spots

and I wanted to give those bright spots their earned place

in my blogging timeline!!

Here's a hint for my 1st (and littlest) bright spot:

her name starts with an R and she weighs about 11 pounds...

No, it's not your imagination...

she IS the cutest baby you've ever seen

Playing dress up at Rachael & Matt's

birthday barbeque (8/25/12)

Babysitting in September

Hangin' with the girls at Panera..

I'm gonna have to give myself a shout-out for making

her that freaking adorable headband she's rocking!!

Another visit to Rachael & Ro-bee

I mean...stop it kid. 

You're killing me.

Good luck ever telling her 'no' Rachael....

Going swimming for the last time this summer...

(8/28/12)

Too cool

Double bright spots!!

I think she's gonna fit in just right....

And the cherry on top....

I happened to catch this sweet girls

first laughs on video!!

Melt my heart!!

Bright spot #2:

Family time at my mom & dad's

Kelly wrestling petting the dogs

mamacita...aka...the animal hoarder

Decided to try our luck at fishing

Of course lil country bumpkin caught one...

here's what I caught:

thought I had a big one on the line...

just a bunch of lake moss...sigh

And then we found a stray dog...

 and being the offspring of an animal hoarder we obviously

threw it in our car.....

Bright spot #3:

Beth & Alicia's 'Taste of Kansas City'

A two woman food tour.

Some, but not all of our stops are occurring

before our shifts on nights that we work.

It's as delicious as it sounds...

The Art of Pizza in the KC crossroads

(9/17/12)

The pizza was delish but the garlic knots we had as 

an appetizer nearly did me in...

I was burping garlic for like 24 hours...TMI I know...

we've decided we'll go back but skip the garlic knots.

We made a fun afternoon out of ordering

Leo's St. Louis style pizza and making an

obscene amount of girly foo-foo drinks...

this 'Taste' was extra special cause one of my 

other bright spots joined us!!

(9/21/12)

Once the pizza had settled, we hopped in the 

car and headed to The Landing in Liberty to

have some of their fried pickles

(you should probably know that we're fried pickle connoisseurs)

I've been sucking at taking pictures so here's 

a comprehensive list of our conquered restaurants;

-The Peanut (cheese fries)

-Rico's Tacos (ah-mazing 1.00 tacos)

-The Art of Pizza

-Leo's Pizza

-The Landing (fried pickles)

Bright spot #4:

Plaza Art fair with my best friend.

I love going to the plaza art fair.

It's just one of those things that I have to do 

in order for it to feel like fall has arrived.

I only took one picture, but the evening

was perfect and we followed it up with 

some yummy Thai food at Lulu's.

sweet little Ro had fallen asleep by the time

we thought to take a picture. 

Still can't believe we took your BABY with us to the plaza

art fair this year, Rach!! So surreal!

Bright spot #5:

Little sis moves into her own house!!

Last weekend Kelly was finally able to move into her

new home!

After a few set backs and having her closing date 

postponed twice, she was beyond ready to get those keys.

I'm super excited for her. 

I know how great it feels to buy your first home.

Selfish big sister is trying to get over the fact that she

moved father away from  me (30 minutes versus 10),

but I suppose I should just be grateful that we live in the

same state and that I don't have to book a flight to go see her.

I'm sure we'll still have our fair share of

ridiculous times together...

did I mention that we're conjoined?

...hence the reason I'm having separation anxiety!!

oh, and then there was the time that we couldn't 

finish all our sushi rolls at the all you can eat sushi bar...

(all you can eat = no doggy bags)

So we just had to make due...

the sushi was just too good to leave behind...

BAHAHA...I die.

I love you all, little bright spots!!

Thank you for filling my days with big laughs,

good food, long talks and great memories.

InstaFriday and my week in review

This was just going to be a post of the past weeks Instagram pics, 

but then I realized that I didn't Instagram all that much....

So, it's just turning into a random spattering of pictures.

Some Instagram,

Some not.

Some boring.

Some delicious.

and some very cute.

Starting with last Thursday...

I got together with some girls from work to assemble 

carekits for Heart to Heart International.

My friend Amy is quite the hostess and turned our

volunteer time into a dinner party. She fixed us all a 

yummy Italian dinner...the cherry on top was this

little cutie Savannah, my friend Cathi's daughter!

10 months old and so much fun!

Friday

Friday I met my mom, sister and Alicia in the Westbottoms 

for another month of First Fridays!  Alicia and I had plans

for fried pickles and cheese fries afterwards so I purposefully

headed out with on empty stomach...

this unfortunately just led to me being tired, hot and hungry so

we only stayed for about 2 hours and then had a 

long awaited rendezvous with Tomfooleries' fried pickles..

YUM.

Saturday

Not much other than Olympic watching.

Still loving it!!

Sunday

I finally got my butt in gear on Sunday and

hung the windows that I bought in July at First Fridays.

(I can't have too many First Friday projects hanging

over my head afterall...)

Roy was working, and I nearly killed myself hanging these

50lb windows (as in...falling off an inadequate barstool turned ladder with

the window coming down with me....), but I got it done!!

It was a very 'Iamwomanhearmeroar!' kind of moment when

I finally stood back and admired my hard work.

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

Tuesday

I've spent much of this week fretting about what I'm going

to wear to a wedding we have this Saturday...

Dress on the left is the what I'd like to wear IF I can

squeeze into it...it's a little bit tight and I don't think I need

to be bustin' seams on the dance floor.

Dress on the right is cute too and quite stretchy...

hmmmm

This predicament was not made easier by these 

cupcakes I decided to pick up for my orientee's last night

with me on Tuesday.

But they were delicious, and definitely worth the

calorie splurge...right???

Wednesday

Wednesday was super fun.

I went and visited Rachael and Ro 

(I got my R&R as I like to say...

please remember, I'm a fan of corny sayings)

Little Ro was sleepin when we got there,

but she just looked so cute and cozy that I just

had to give her a snuggle...

those boppys are freakin' comfortable PS...

After visiting Rach I went home to get ready for

date night!! WooHoo!

We decided to go to CinemaSuites and solve the

elusive question of 'dinner first or movie first??'  

It's a little bit pricey, but a fun date night every once in awhile.

Apparently I couldn't take my eyes off the 

spell binding previews...?

We also saw a really pretty double rainbow on our

way to the movies

(and yes, it rained....THANK YOU GOD!!!)

I thought it was cool that this rainbow ended right

on top of Lifeway Christian Store.

A great reminder of what rainbows were originally 

meant to stand for!!!

Thursday

I just hadn't gotten enough of my Rachael and Ro time

so I went back over to visit and got to go on a walk!!

It wasn't too hot when the sun went behind a cloud,

but when it came out we started getting a little toasty

and had to make a short lap home.

Roy wanted me to send him a video of little Rowan in 

her stroller. I happily obliged. 

Cause thats what proud Aunties do!!

Friday

My friend at work let me try some of her pickles.

She canned them herself and I about went freaking

crazy....SO GOOD!  

And then just like some sort of angel she was like

'Hey, you want a jar? I've got extra' and I looked

at her like she'd just offered me her kidney!

I ate 1/3rd of the jar over the second half of my shift!

I couldn't stop myself!!

I'm for sure gonna swell up like a balloon and 

not be able to wear the striped dress to the wedding!!

Good thing I've got the stretchy pickle-friendly dress

as a back-up!

Roy went and worked with his best friend Ed today. 

The two of them have this 'bring your best friend to work' thing going on, 

and Ed has ridden along with Roy a few times,

 so today Roy was an honorary vault man.

Vaults. 

Not bank vaults.

As in...a vault you put a casket in...

Wierd job, right?? 

I dont get why people pay extra money to put their casket

inside a sealed vault? Are they planning to exume the person?

Want them to stay earthworm free for eternity?

I told Roy he better not even think about spending any

extra money on a valult for me....he can just buy the

bargain casket and be good to go.

He sent me this cute picture of himself out on the job.

I just wanna pinch him.

And that's it!!

It's been pretty busy week.

Tomorrow is the wedding and we'll have the

final dress showdown....stay tuned...

Dun-dun-dunnnnnn

I'm Lame....

If my blog were a dog it would be sad, mangey, 

pathetic starving little creature,

no doubt covered in fleas....

like this guy...

Neglected.

How can I feel too busy to blog?

What the heck do I even do all the time?

I don't even have a freakin' kid and I can't

seem to get it together!! Sheesh!!

Well wait no more!! 

A blog post has arrived!

Unfortunately I am devoid of creativity and

my motivation to write this will no doubt run out

in about 5 minutes, so I better get to it...

bullet point style...

Here's a few things I've been up to as of late.

And PS, I'm seemingly uncapable of getting these pictures

to format and lay out the way I want them too-so excuse the

wonky arrangements!!

• POOL TIME...not nearly as much as I'd like, but hey, any pool time is good time so I'll take what I can get!! I didn't take any photos of my pool time with Alicia, although it was lovely and there was interesting people watching ;)     I did however get a few pics of myself and preggers...she's keepin the belly under wraps at the pool, although I personally think she should set the belly free and catch some sun!!!

• City Market.  One of my favorite summer activities is to visit the farmers market downtown. Usually I only make it once, but I've already been twice this year! Yahoo!! Rach and I went one Saturday morning after working (a nice bonus to working a Friday, I might add..) My purchases included some green beans, cherries, strawberries, peaches and some zucchini. I'd never made fresh green beans before, but after doing some recipe research I steamed and stir-fried them-YUM-O! Don't think I'll ever be able to eat canned green beans again!!

• Becca's baby shower.....well it wouldn't be right if I wasn't going to a baby shower atleast once a month!! Working with 250 women has it's perks and one of those perks is celebrating lots of new babies!! Our friend Becca is expecting a baby boy just a  few weeks after Rachael. A couple of us got together at Megan's and had a popcorn/ice cream social/carnival themed shower! Umm HELL-O-I'm officially conviced that I need one of these popcorn machines in our basement!!  

• Fathers Day.  We celebrated 27 years of my pops being a daddy. And what an amazing father he is!! We met for dinner at one of our favorite go-to restaurants, Macaroni Grill. It never disappoints. Kelly and I were pretty lame in the gift department...we got him white undershirts and a blue polo shirt. I also found this little book about dads that you could personalize, so I hope that gave our gifts a bit more of a sentimental touch..I'm all about making my parents cry with sappy gifts and cards!!

Love you daddy!!

(I've abandoned all hope of trying to arrange my pictures 

side by side or in squares...I'm reverting back to the good ol'

straight down the middle line up....)

• Deanna Rose Farmstead. My sister is the Animal Care Manager at DRCF, so I try to go out there a few times each summer and fall to see the animals and hang out with her.  She always talks about how she could never be a nurse and deal with all the blood and bodily fluids...but holy cow, she has no problem hand feeding dead rats to bobcats and eagles!?!! WTF?? No thanks, I'll take baby poop over rat brains any day sistah....

Cleo the Siamese kitten....

If you dont immediately start singing

 "We are siamese if you please.." from Lady and The Tramp,

then we're probably not gonna get along :)

Most hilarious sequence of photos ever...

Rachel the Donkey (BAHAHAHA)

was showing me her lovely gingivitis and then

sneezed and shot snot out of her right nostril!!

I was dying...

Human Rachael is less than thrilled that she shares

a name with an overweight donkey...

RIP Mr. Ratty

I took these rabbit photos for Roy, he's got 

some sort of affinity for rabbits...which is wierd to me

cause he's not really an 'animal' person.

Bah....My motivation expired about 15 minutes ago,

but I still had two more things I wanted to post about...

I guess this post is To Be Continued..